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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — City prosecutors are expected to halt efforts to appeal a court ruling that prevents the removal of shopping carts and other items left behind by transients on streets in downtown Los Angeles.

KNX 1070’s Claudia Peschiutta reports the case involves a 2011 class-action lawsuit, in which eight homeless people living on Skid Row challenged the city’s practice of destroying property left on the street.

LA City Attorney To Drop Appeal Of Ban On Seizure Of Skid Row Property

Claudia Peschiutta

Under an injunction filed in April 2011, the city is permitted to take abandoned property, but not unattended property that’s not abandoned. The injunction also permits the city to remove property on Skid Row that presents an imminent public health or safety threat.

The City Attorney’s office appealed the case to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court’s decision and denied the city’s request for the full court to review the decision of the three-judge panel.

While the petition was pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review the case last June, the parties engaged in settlement discussions, but those ended in April 2013. Subsequently, the city filed an application to modify the original injunction, seeking to be able to remove even briefly unattended property on Skid Row.

Plaintiff’s attorney Carol Sobel, who represented residents on Skid Row, said it wasn’t immediately clear what future steps the city is considering taking against a growing number of encampments popping up in the area.

“People have nowhere to go,” said Sobel. “If you don’t deal with stopping people from becoming homeless in the first place, this is what occurs.”

Rob Wilcox, spokesman for City Attorney Mike Feuer, said the appeal seeking a modification of the injunction will be dropped “in the next week or so.”